CEO reprimands employee after his 5-year-old appeared in the background during a work call, employee resigns after pressure: 'I don't feel I can work here anymore'

This boss clearly isn't a fan of meeting his employees' families.

When you're meeting with a fully remote employee for a work call, it's not a shock when someone or something pops up in the background to disrupt the moment. It could be a package delivery. It could be the sudden appearance of a dog. Or it could be an employee's kid who came home from school and didn't know their parent was busy. Usually, when this happens, a normal coworker would have no problem with it. After all, life is full of minor interruptions. You either learn to live with them and keep moving forward, or you make a big deal out of them.

This author's CEO could not help but make a big deal out of a brief cameo appearance from a remote employee's kid, who showed up for just a minute. He demanded that the human resources department reach out to the employee after the call, expressing a desire for him to no longer work out of his home office. Instead, he now needed to come into a WeWork or another coworking space.

The author was displeased on multiple levels. First of all, that wasn't part of their employment agreement. The deal was that he got to work remotely and on his own terms. Furthermore, the fact that his CEO took issue with the reality and demands of children just goes to show that this is not a good guy to work for. If he can't be a human and recognize that kids occasionally walk into their parents' offices not knowing that their fathers are working, then he either has zero empathy or he's not living in reality.

We're on the employee's side and do not think he's overreacting at all to this bogus request. If anyone is overreacting, it's the CEO! These kinds of unfair demands only speak to the CEO's lack of maturity. Furthermore, the fact that HR was so willing to let him make this ridiculous demand also reflects a lack of integrity on their part to protect their employees. Unsurprising, of course, but still disappointing!
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"My five-year-old daughter appeared on camera for two seconds, and I got a call from HR. I'm leaving my job."

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_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}